


I don't love

by GiveMeMoreShips



Category: Borderlands
Genre: Angst, Atlas CEO Rhys, Dark Rhys, Eventual Smut, HIATUS UNTIL I EDIT, Handsome Jack x Rhys, Hurt/Comfort, Jack Being an Asshole, M/M, Mental Health Issues, On Hold, Siren Rhys, Slow Burn, Swearing, Unhealthy Relationships, WRITTERS BLOCK FOR NOW, pinning
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-11
Updated: 2016-12-04
Packaged: 2018-08-21 21:33:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,125
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8261107
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GiveMeMoreShips/pseuds/GiveMeMoreShips
Summary: “I was lonely before I met him, and once I did, we-we clicked and he became my sun and my stars and I worshipped him as a partner, we fought all the time but loved each other at the same time, we were soul mates in a sense he was almost a replica of me…Almost, and after a year of being together he randomly decided to kick me out. He gave me less than twelve hours and after the shit year I had had I couldn’t handle it, I fought to stay and he said it was to save the relationship. But fuck, it hurt so much I physically felt my heart break Jack, and two days later he broke up with me, I was more broken on the inside than I was on the outside and I have a robotic arm and eye for god sake! I was a mess I went down an interesting career path before claiming Atlas and I am still broken from the aftermath, I can’t love and I don’t know how to love. Do you know how that feels Jack?” Rhys asked, swiping at the tears that began to fall from his eyes.“Hell no kiddo, Handsome Jack only loves his goddamn self, because I don’t want to sound as pathetic as you currently do right now, I mean speaking of wimps much.” laughed Jack.





	1. Chapter 1

Rhys sighed, he leaned his chin down on his robotic hand and glared daggers at the electronic article in front of him, Handsome Jack, well ‘Hyperion’ had ‘apparently’ created the best weapon in years. The so called best weapon was a simple yet exotic looking pistol that could apparently create wormholes and suck bandits through it, Rhys couldn’t even buy that that’s what it could do, the science behind it sounded impossible, but of course Handsome Jack had somehow made it possible. He would have been completely impressed if it weren’t for the fact that as his position of CEO of Atlas he would have to compete and make something even better.

All Rhys could do now is wait for the call he knew would come, the call of a gloating Hyperion CEO, oh how Rhys hated hearing Jack’s voice every time Hyperion had upped him and his company. Speaking of which, his echo began to ring its’ obnoxious ringtone with the devils gloating face appearing in front of him.

Begrudgingly Rhys answered the call and waited, “…...”

“What’s with the pout cupcake?” Jack teased, staring at the Atlas CEO with an intense amount of amusement dancing around his eyes. 

“Oh, you know…You’re talking to me,” Rhys retorted, staring smugly at Jack who snorted at the response and leaned back in his chair to study Rhys from his end. 

“Babe, do you have any idea how many people would kill to talk to me? I am goddamn h-“

“Handsome Jack, I know…you’ve told me like a shit tonne of times. Now why’d you call me?” Rhys quickly cut him off, doing the one thing no one ever dared to do. Interrupt and sass Handsome Jack. 

A surge of anger crossed Jack’s face before he relaxed and let a wolfish grin fall on his face, “feisty as always, I’ll definitely have to break you in before you’re mine, Rhysie.” The latter replied with a wink towards Rhys, who groaned into his hand. 

“Unlike you Jack, I’m not that easy. Sorry.”

“Yeah, yeah cupcake. Now judging from that article on your computer behind you…I guess you’ve seen my newest accomplishment. Love it? Hate it? Jerk off to it? Because I sure do.”

“It’s, gr-okay.”

“It’s Okay? Honestly pumpkin? All I get is an okay?”

Shrugging back at Jack, Rhys kept his cool in place as the other began to fume on the other end.

“Why do I bother calling you to gloat? All you do is crush my happiness, like at least pretend you’re happy for my greatness Rhysie.”

“I’m the CEO of Atlas Jack, I have to compete against you. Y’know make something bigger to satisfy, ring any bells.”

“I can give you something bigger to satisfy you if you’d let me.” Jack retorted cheekily.

Coughing at the response Rhys felt his face heat up at that comment, he was never prepared for that stuff when it left Jack’s mouth. 

‘Ignore it Rhys,' his mind reprimanded. 

Shaking his head as if to regain his cool, Rhys watched as Jack smirked back at him with his suffocating confidence. 

“So when am I going to see your fine ass back up at Elpis, doll face?”

“I dunno, maybe when I top off your black hole gun...So in the next few hours?” 

“Ya know princess, if you were any other shitty CEO, I would have strangled that pretty little throat ages ago. But that spunk you’ve always got going for you, that’s doing it for me.”

Yawning into his hand, Rhys rubbed at his eyes in a kid like manner (ignoring Jack's last comment), he needed some sleep before kicking Jack’s guns ass. 

“If you’re so tired, why don’t you come over to daddy Jack? I’ll satisfy every desire.” 

“Yeah, no. Bye Jack, I need to sleep in my bed, alone. Night.” With that Rhys ended the call on Jack and leaned back in his seat with a sigh. Running his flesh hand through his hair, Rhys stumbled over to the built in bedroom in his office, he slid his hand over the panel situated on the wall and stumbled into the small bedroom that revealed itself and collapsed onto his small single bed. 

 

“That little dipshit, he hung up on me.” Jack snarled to himself, glaring down at his echo device, “little brat”, Jack continued to rant, he pushed off of his seat and stalked around his office angrily, how dare Rhys the CEO of Atlas of all things hang up on him! No one hung up on him and when Rhys did it…It kinda turned him on, “fuck”, Jack muttered to himself pinching the bridge of his nose, how did a lanky noddle of a nerd Jack had met only a year ago at an gun convention on Pandora gain such an effect on him?

It was the darkness that Rhys held, it had to be, darkness had always attracted Jack, and Rhys had a tonne of it, those eyes the boy held hid a lot of secrets and it haunted Jack, Rhys wasn’t boring and he had a feisty personality that Jack wanted to break in so much, just thinking about breaking the man got him going. 

Except according to rumours before Rhys brought Atlas back, the boy had already been broken by someone else, mentally and emotionally. Jack hoped it wouldn't be as hard to re-break Rhys, once Rhys was gone, Jack could run Hyperion without actually competing against Atlas, like in the good old days. 

Huffing a sigh, Jack moved to the couch in his office and flopped back on it, the man tilted his head back and flung a hand over his eyes to block the lights out.

He needed to keep ahead of Atlas with weapons and he needed to work on the other CEO that had attracted him so much.


	2. Leave

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "By the way, that whole yelling at me thing….Made me hard…Sorry…Not Sorry” Jack teased

Rhys groaned for the fifth time of the day, the gun that was guaranteed to beat Hyperion’s new one was harder to get working than he had originally planned, the ‘hot as fuck’ gun (Rhys had named it out of pure boredom) was an elemental gun everyone would love, it was going to be quite simple yet it was going to make watching people die fun. The plan for the gun that was when you shot it, it’d shoot out a round of bullets that would spread out into a net connected by thin flames and once it hit it's target it’d wrap around and blaze itself encasing the victim in a slow and quite painful death, “god that’d be satisfying to watch”, Rhys mumbled to himself as he re-read over the current problems for the gun, trying to think of a solution to all of the found problems.

“So you do look like complete shit,” a familiar voice observed from the office door, looking up at the intruder, Rhys squawked at the sight of Handsome Jack, “how the hell did you sneak into my office?” Rhys questioned, standing up to stalk towards the other man. 

“I’m Handsome Jack baby, I can sneak into anywhere,” retorted the man as he observed Rhys.

Snorting at Jack’s response, Rhys stopped in front of the man and narrowed his eyes towards him waiting for some type of explanation as to why he had suddenly appeared in his office. 

“When’s the last time you slept sugar?” probed Jack, the man rouse an eyebrow and crossed his arms staring down at the Atlas CEO.

Shrugging his shoulders, Rhys moved past Jack and towards the plain white couch placed on the right side of his office, he sat down on it and crossed his legs, peering towards Jack, Rhys watched as he huffed and followed suite, sitting a bit too closely to Rhys for his liking. 

“Look I’m only here because your hot ass assistant rang me all concerned like, ‘Handsome Jack sir, poor Rhysie hasn’t been sleeping and I am so worried, also when can I suck your dick next? Blah, blah.” Jack mimicked a high pitched tone pulling faces as he carried on. 

Smirking at the older man Rhys let a small laugh slip past his lips, catching Jack’s attention who in return stared at Rhys with a burning intensity within his eyes.

“What?” Rhys asked, snapping Jack out of whatever trance he was in.

“I was just thinking about how great my dick would look in that mouth of yours kiddo.”

Rolling his eyes, Rhys allowed the two to fall into an slightly awkward silence, not even bothering to dignify Jack with a response. 

 

“So….I hear you’re busy next Tuesday at exactly 6pm until I say so.” Jack suddenly stated, catching Rhys off guard, the younger man turned towards Jack with a questioning gaze, Tuesday was his day off…Sometimes. 

“You heard wrong, Jackie boy.” 

“No I heard right, because you’re coming to my ‘Hyperion is better than all you other shitty weapon companies’ party. I mean after all you’re…” pausing to make a point, Jack grimaced in disgust as he finished his sentence “Atlas.”

“Righhht and how do you plan to enforce that I do? I mean after all I just love, rebelling against the great Handsome Jack.” Rhys retorted, sizing Jack up who frowned, before lunging at Rhys unexpectedly. 

Acting on his instincts, Rhys let his cybernetic arm fly towards Jack and connect with the man’s face, Jack fell to the ground clutching his now bleeding nose, “freaking little brat, CRAP!” Jack swore, he smeared the blood from beneath his nose and towered over Rhys, who for once stared up at Jack in fear. 

Rhys had done many things to Jack before but never had hit him, even if it was by accident. 

“I did not mean that Jack, I mean you lunged at me it was a natural reaction!” Rhys quickly defended himself staring at the man who stared back menacingly. 

As if he couldn’t even believe Rhys’s excuse, Jack lunged at Rhys’s throat with a single hand, he plucked the CEO off of his couch by his throat and slammed Rhys up against the closest wall. 

“What the fuck did I ever do to you?” Jack spat out at Rhys who clawed at his throat, in a desperate attempt to get the latter to let him go, Rhys could already feel the bruising begin around his throat. 

“Y-you c-c-caught me off guard,” wheezed Rhys as his vision began to blur and his words began to slur together into a winded breath. 

Glaring at Rhys, Jack slammed his left fist into the wall just beside Rhys’s head before dropping the boy, “goddammit, why can’t I find it in myself to kill you? I mean you’re an ungrateful brat and you do nothing but throw it in my face.” 

“C-could you leave Jack?” Rhys abruptly choked out rubbing at his throat, he could feel his side begin to burn and needed the other man out, his body and powers were beginning to act up from the pain surging through his throat. 

“Me? Leave? Why the hell should I leave? Look what you did to my face!” yelled Jack as he pointed towards the blood smeared underneath his nose. 

“Just leave.”

“Nope!”

“LEAVE!” Rhys’s voice boomed around the room, Jack stared at the man who was still on the ground in somewhat shock. 

Furrowing his brows, Jack spun on his heels and headed toward the doors, his hands itched to pull out his gun and just kill Rhys, but Jack fought against the urge. Before leaving though, Jack stopped midway and stared at Rhys who was glaring daggers at the ground, “by the way, that whole yelling at me thing….Made me hard…Sorry…Not Sorry,” Jack teased, reeling in his anger back to avoid scaring Rhys off, before continuing on his walk out of said persons office. 

As soon as his doors swung shut, Rhys quickly unbuttoned his shirt, the material was making his markings burn as if they were an angry rash.  
“For fuck sake.” Rhys muttered to his glowing tattoos, he hated being a siren at times and he hated how unpredictable the glowing could be. 

They were almost as unpredictable as Handsome Jack.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> JACK WASN'T LUNGING TO HURT RHYS, I had originally planned for him to straddle Rhys and try to seduce him but thought, let's completely ruin that idea and instead make Rhys punch Jack.


	3. Panic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Did he just reject Handsome Jack?”
> 
> “What an ungrateful brat.”
> 
> “That’s Atlas for ya.”

Rhys tightened his dark red tie and stared at himself in the mirror with a smirk playing on his lips, he was going to enjoy Jack’s party just to spite Hyperion and the following day he’d release the new gun they had finally created and tested and watch Hyperion as well as their sales crash. Jack was going to be pissed and Rhys was looking forward to it. Speaking of the man Rhys hadn’t seen or heard from him for an entire week since his powers played up and Rhys had told him to leave. It was strange not having the CEO lingering around the place and to flirt or harass Rhys, Rhys was almost lonely, almost. 

Slicking his hair back one last time and giving it a bit of a mess Rhys, nodded at himself in approval and quickly hurried out of his office, closing off the secret bedroom passage in his office to quickly leave the Atlas building. 

 

“Handsome Jack sir, it’s great to finally meet you” an old plump man bellowed holding his hand out to shake, rolling his eyes at the presumed loser, Jack leaned back against the wall of the party room and stared patronizingly at the man whom was starting to look offended, “and who are you?” He finally questioned. 

“Sir, we’ve been through this at every party, I am the CEO of Jakobs-“

“And you’ve lost me, bye.” Jack snorted, making the man huff rudely before spinning on his heel, “give me anymore attitude Jakobs and you and your company will be gone.” Jack threatened, watching in glee as the man stiffened before quickly weaving through the crowd.

“Where the hell is Atlas?” Jack pondered out loud almost pouting down at the glass of wine in his hand, he hadn’t spoken to the man for a week in hopes of getting Rhys’s attention (that’s right Handsome Jack was playing hard to get for a twerp). “Ugh I really need to kill someone” Jack murmured before his eyes landed back on the CEO of Jakobs who was acting smug and quite arrogantly with another woman as if his company actually meant something. 

“Fuck it, he’ll do.”

Sauntering back up to the other CEO, Jack smiled a predatory grin at the man who gulped upon the latter stalking towards him, “Jakobs come up to my office, I have something to show ya,” Jack cooed, watching as the man nodded mutely with excitement twinkling in his eyes, oh this was gonna be great Jack thought.

 

Rhys stepped into the Hyperion ball room with a smirk plastered on his face, he was an hour late but didn’t care, Atlas after all refused to bow down to Hyperion like all these other companies that currently gawked at him and whispered about him.

Strutting up to the bar, Rhys ordered one of Jack’s strangely named drinks the one he was currently waiting on was currently named ‘Butt stallion’, after his diamond pony the man spoke fondly of that Rhys had never even seen, perhaps Jack was bullshitting about the pony. 

Taking his Butt stallion, Rhys made his way towards the left side of the room, eyeing the crowd for the familiar figure of Handsome Jack. 

“Looking for me?” Jack suddenly asked coming from nowhere, causing Rhys to yelp and almost spill his drink over his brand new suit. 

“Oh man, that was the grirliest yelp I have heard, and I’ve killed plenty of women.” Jack laughed, causing Rhys, the ruthless CEO of Atlas to flush bright red, which made Jack cackle even more.

“Where the hell were you?” Rhys asked as he began to eye Jack up, the man had a twisted and quite familiar gleam in his mis-matched eyes, which meant one thing, Jack had killed someone and to confirm his suspicions were a few specks of splattered blood resting on Jack’s right cheek.

Sighing to himself, Rhys plucked his red handkerchief from his front breast pocket and without a thought or any hesitation he moved to wipe Jack’s face clean, the latter however quickly lashed out and gripped Rhy’s cybernetic wrist in his own and glowered down at Rhys.

“Who said you could touch Handsome freaking Jack?” Jack questioned, giving Rhy’s wrist a tight squeeze, “you don’t want people seeing blood on your face, besides you touch me enough, I should be able to touch you, Jack,” Rhys easily replied. 

“I’d prefer you touch me more intimately” Jack purred, tugging Rhys’s wrist so the latter was almost touching Jack from his chest downwards, Rhys could feel nothing but burning stares on him from all the other workers in the room and he sort of loved the attention mixed with pure jealousy radiating throughout the room, aimed directly at him.

“Yep, sure not happening, sorry Jack.” Rhys retorted, stepping back with his arm still in Jack’s harsh grip. 

Baring his teeth at Rhys almost innocently, Jack narrowed his eyes and tugged Rhys back into his previous place except this time he slid his arm around Rhy’s lean waist to hold him in place.

“Everyone wants to touch me intimately cupcake, especially you.”

“Jack look can you stop, everyone is staring.”

“Afraid of a little attention?”

“No, look let go. This isn’t professional.” Rhys argued, feeling his anxiety begin to bubble up within him, this felt too familiar way too familiar, this exact thing had happened with his last partner and Rhys could feel himself begin to tremble. 

“Are you literally trembling right now? I thought we got over the fear Rhysie.” Jack growled, sounding angrier by the second.

Tearing his cybernetic arm from Jack’s grip, Rhys rubbed at his wrist, almost like it was real and he could feel pain, which caused Jack to remove his arm from the mans waist with a look of hurt. 

“Did he just reject Handsome Jack?”

“What an ungrateful brat.”

“That’s Atlas for ya.”

Rhys heard from around him, grasping at his chest, Rhys forced himself to move away from Jack and towards the bar, he quickly reached over and plucked an entire bottle of red wine from the shelving and pushed his legs to leave the room in a panic.

Rhys had thought he’d gotten over everything, but yet his body seemed to completely disagree, the Atlas CEO moved towards the elevator and punched in the buttons to go where Jack wouldn’t bother looking, his office. 

No one was game enough to go in Jack’s office without permission after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ill explain everything soon with Rhys's anxiety and shiz, hopefully the two aren't too out of character as I am kinda placing a lot of my experience on Rhys and am hoping it isn't getting too personal or too unlike him. 
> 
> THANKS SO MUCH FOR THE COMMENTS AND SUPPORT TOO BTW YOU BEAUTIFUL CREATURES.


	4. His office

Rhys dialled in the familiar password to Jack’s office, having to have gained the 5 digit password from the man through the random visits they both paid to each other’s offices to gloat. Rhys clenched the wine bottle in his cybernetic hand and sauntered towards Jack’s chair, without a care or any hesitation, even though he knew that if Jack found him like this he’d surely be killed. Rhys sat in Jack’s chair, kicked his feet up on the latter’s desk and leaned back comfortably, releasing a pent up sigh, Rhys popped open the wine bottle and began his drinking. He needed to forget about what he had just done and what had made him end up doing that, and a full bottle of wine would do the trick, especially since Rhys was a light weight and for once he was thankful for that. 

Jack was fuming and slightly, just very slightly worried about Rhys, he was leaning against the nearest wall trying to interest himself in the brunette woman in front of him that was currently flirting with the man.

“I mean if I had your attention like him Jack…I’d use it to satisfy the both of us,” she purred. Rolling his eyes at the woman, Jack scoffed at the girl earning a pout. “Yeah look lady, I am not in the mood for flirting, so either you get to the point or I am going to go be productive and do some work,” Jack stated, this caused the girl in front of him to flush and nod as she nibbled on her lower lip before speaking.

“I want to have sex with you.”

“Of course you do who doesn’t?”

“The Atlas CE-“

“Who doesn’t?” Jack interrupted narrowing his eyes at the girl’s mistake, who seemed to swallow nervously at Jack’s tone of voice. 

“Look kiddo, I gotta say I am not into what you’re advertising, I mean for the past twenty minutes you have been making innuendos about sex and to be honest you have bored me, nothing you have said or done have done things for me. And I much rather do some very important work. Kay? Bye.” 

Stalking past the girl, Jack left the party behind, no longer interested in gloating about Hyperion’s success to the useless people gathered in there, he’d leave everything up to his secretary to sort out. 

Entering the elevator, Jack checked his echo device only to glare at it, someone had been in his office according to the numerous intruder notifications, Jack had a feeling on who it’d be, only one person was dumb to enter his office without Jack’s permission and that confused Jack even more, of all places why choose his office?

“Rhysie?” Jack called once entering, narrowing his eyes at the lanky figure spread across his desk off all things, the man’s cybernetic arm was thrown across his eyes and an empty wine bottle lied on the ground abandoned and forgotten.

“Y’know I should kill you for this, I usually do. I mean first you reject me and than the invasion of privacy. Plenty of good reasons to kill somebody, no matter who they are.” Jack stated, pursing his lips in annoyance, he placed his right hand onto the grip of his pistol, itching to pull it out and shoot the man on the desk but another side forced him not to.

Hearing no response, Jack huffed in annoyance and delivered a hard kick to his desk, jolting Rhys awake who stared at him through squinted eyes.

“What?” Rhys slurred out the question, sitting upright on Jack’s desk.

“Of all things you could be sprawled out on tonight you chose my desk.”

“I like your desk” Rhys hazily replied, staring at Jack who frowned, the man moved closer to Rhys, towering over the Atlas CEO who remained still on his desk.

“I should honestly kill you kid, I can’t keep playing these pathetic games of yours.”

Blinking up at Jack, Rhys tried to focus on the man’s words through his alcohol clouded mind, “kill me then,” Rhys adruptly taunted, he hastily reached for Jack’s pistol surprising the latter, knocking Jack’s hand away that clung to it, Rhys withdrew the pistol from Jack's hoister and held the gun to his temple with a loose smile on his flushed face. 

“What do you think you’re doing?” Jack questioned in an almost growl, he could feel his gut drop at the sight of his own pistol being held to Rhys’s head. 

“Don’t’ you want to kill me Jackie?” Rhys drunkenly queried, leaning forward towards Jack with his pistol still being held in place. 

“Ye-no give me that freaking gun you piece of crap!” Jack shouted, snatching the gun from Rhys’s hand who in return grinned. 

“I don’t have time for this Rhys. Get off of my desk.” At this, Jack shoved Rhys off of his desk, who stumbled onto the floor and turned over to look up at Jack with wide eyes, “I can’t deal with you right now. Not after you of all goddamn freaking people rejected me.”

“Jack,” Rhys whined, reaching up to claw at Jack’s leg earning a nasty glare from Jack, Jack stared down at the intoxicated latter with a scowl on his face. 

“Get out Rhys.” Jack ordered, the lanky other scrambled to his feet almost tripping as he straightened up, Jack watched through narrowed eyes as Rhys ignored his orders and instead opted to flopping onto Jack’s pristine yellow couch he had tucked against one of the walls of his office.

“G’night Jacko-roo” Rhys mumbled into the couch, and before Jack could yell or shoot at Rhys the man passed out straight away on his couch with soft snores emitting from his mouth.

Jack pinched the bridge of his nose in frustration and delivered a hard kick to his desk, this time sending it toppling over with all of his paper work and documents along with it. 

“Fuck!”


	5. Dirty

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ‘Why settle with Hyperion weaponry? When you can settle with the gun that puts all of Hyperion to shame?’ And below it was the picture of the new gun Rhys had decided to release not even a day after Hyperion’s party.

Rhys woke up with a groan as a blinding light seeped through his squinted eyes, the man sat upright almost fainting from the dull pain hammering in the back of his head from the sudden movement. “I officially hate myself,” Rhys mumbled to himself, his eyes adjusting to the familiar office he was situated in. Once his eyes were adjusted Rhys, immediately knew where he was, Jack’s office. 

“Why do I feel as though I did stupid crap last night?” Rhys queried himself, looking for the owner of the office who didn’t seem to be anywhere, for once. 

Running his flesh hand through his messy looks, Rhys sighed in exhaustion and moved to stand straight, both of his hands moved to his sides to stable himself against the couch he had apparently slept on. 

“Awww look at you, like a foal learning to walk,” cooed an arrogant voice from the entrance of the office. Swallowing thickly, Rhys turned slowly to fully face Jack, who peered back at him with hooded eyes. 

“Look, Jack I am sorry for what I may have done last night.”

“May have done? Naw Rhysie did you seriously forget the fun we had?” Jack retorted waggling his eyebrows towards Rhys who instantly flushed at his lewd suggestions. 

“We didn’t do anything did we?” Questioned the lanky male, suddenly filled with nerves.

Crossing his toned arms, Jack sauntered towards Rhys with a glimmer of disappointment in his mis-matched eyes, “nope.” Replied Jack, popping the ‘p’.

Sighing in relief, Rhys jumped, obviously startled at the small amount of space Jack had left between them when he decided to stop in front of Rhys and merely stare as if he were studying an animal he had never seen before.

Rolling his eyes at Rhys’s reaction, Jack spun on his heel and strolled to his desk to take a seat on it, “I have an important question for you Rhys and I expect an answer,” stated Jack, as he unfolded his arms to rest them on either side of his body. 

“Wh-what would that be?” Rhys began to stammer out only to quickly snap back to speaking normally to Jack. 

“Why are you so scared of me?” Jack asked, watching as Rhys stared back at him in confusion, “I’m not scared of you,” he replied cockily raising an eyebrow at Jack as if to challenge the man. Ignoring Rhys’s look, Jack pursed his lips and spoke again, “I meant why are you so scared of affection from me? I mean I’m not planning on killing ya for Atlas or anything,” Jack laughed of, even though he was very well meaning to get close to Rhys, break him and snatch back Atlas, but Rhys didn’t need that information of course. 

“I have my reasons,” Replied Rhys, feeling very defensive of the topic, he began to stalk towards the entrance of Jack’s office, completely facing his back to the man in question. 

“Like what Rhys? Don’t think I’m gonna let you out of here without some type of answer. I mean I do have a perfect aim when it comes to guns and you’d look hot with two cybernetic arms if you catch my drift”, threatened Jack as he attempted to lace some humour within it. He watched as Rhys’s back tensed before relaxing, however it still remained facing Jack, Jack could tell that Rhys was itching to escape him and escape his question. 

Sighing, Rhys clenched and unclenched his fists, staring at nothing but the door that was almost taunting him. 

“Because Jack, I tried that affection and relationship once and it burnt me horribly. I’m not going back to it…Ever.”

Before Jack could reply to the younger man, Rhys had already slipped through his office door. “Well then…That was melodramatic, I feel like I’m in a teen drama or something,” Jack chuckled to himself, slipping off of his desk, Jack prepared himself for a long day of work that almost always included, firing a bunch of incompetent employees via airlock or via gun. 

**************************************************

Rhys let out a long sigh when he finally stepped back in Atlas, he greeted his secretary and slipped into his office, quickly logging into his computer Rhys replied back to every email and filled out the paper work to finally release his new gun and have it advertised across the echo net. 

Once everything was set, Rhys prepared himself for Hyperion and well Jack, this was going to hurt Jack’s ego big time and Rhys felt proud of that, usually he was never this fast with putting Hyperion back in their place and Rhys new he'd better start working on something new, maybe a shield this time. Rhys knew from experience how bad the current available shields could be, maybe he could cross a shield with a weapon…That’d be interesting. 

“Sir the gun is up on the echo net.” His secretary’s voice chimed through the intercom, “finally” Rhys uttered to himself, bringing up said advertisement with a smug grin on his face, oh that was going to gain attention and rivalry.

“Jack, sir.” Meg’s voice chimed through his intercom, groaning in annoyance, Jack swiftly answered her with a grouchy “what?”

“I suggest you go on the echo net, specifically the Atlas site.” Meg replied. 

Perking up at that, Jack pushed aside the tedious paperwork he was working on and quickly pulled up the other company’s website only to slam his fist down on his desk.  
“Oh that is a dirty move!” Jack shouted to no one in particular looking at the advertisement with nothing but resentment. 

On the advertisement in bold taunting writing was the phrase ‘Why settle with Hyperion weaponry? When you can settle with the gun that puts all of Hyperion to shame?’ And below it was the picture of the new gun Rhys had decided to release not even a day after Hyperion’s party.

Instantly pulling up Rhys’s number on his echo, Jack called he wasn’t even surprised when the prick picked up on the first ring, “Yes, Jackie?” the smartarse asked innocently.

 

“That is one dirty advertisement!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am sorry if this was a long wait, I've gotten caught up and swept away into the Mircaulous Ladybug fandom and caught up in the most fluffiest and normal ship I have ever had. I hope no ones too much out of character!


End file.
